Dr. Julie Madsen was testifying in opposition to an Idaho bill, which would prevent doctors from prescribing abortion medication via telemedicine.

Dr. Madsen said at the hearing that she’d had some colonoscopy patients swallow small devices to let doctors examine their colons.

Then Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, who supported the bill asked, “Can this same procedure then be done in a pregnancy? Swallowing a camera and helping the doctor determine what the situation is?”

Dr. Julie Madsen replied that would be anatomically impossible because swallowed pills do not end up in the vagina.

Rep. Barbieri replied, “fascinating.”

After his statements went viral, Rep. Barbieri, told KTVB he wasn’t being serious when he asked a doctor whether a woman could swallow a small camera for a gynecological exam.

Vito Barbieri clarified his statement, “So all I was doing was asking a rhetorical question, and I probably should have had a little bit more sarcastic or rhetorical tone to my inflection, but I was merely trying to illicit the response that I got, which is they’re not comparable, obviously,” he said. “You’re not going to take a tablet to determine the condition of the woman’s pregnancy.”